Some women were held captive for extended periods, days or weeks at a time, said Dr Fasika Amdeselassie, the top public health official for the government-appointed interim administration in Tigray.
“Women are being kept in sexual slavery,” Fasika told Reuters. “The perpetrators have to be investigated.
On 18 March, UNHCR and partners were able to access Shimelba and Hitsats refugee camps for the first time since November 2020. The mission confirmed the destruction of all infrastructure and the absence of refugees in the two camps. The mission was able to briefly visit Sheraro where they received reports of both IDPs and refugees in and around the town. A follow-up mission to Sheraro is planned.
“They put a gun in my mouth,” he adds, before stabbing him and leaving him for dead in the street.
Abiy himself conceded recently that the war had dragged on much longer than he expected. TPLF fighters, he said, had dispersed “like flour in the winds”. He added that the federal army was fighting a guerrilla war on at least eight separate fronts across the country.
Ethiopia is in turmoil. In November 2020, fighting in the Tigray region erupted between Ethiopian government troops and militias in Tigray known as the TPLF. The violence has been horrific.
Crimes reportedly include genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, rape and other sexual violence, and crimes against humanity. At least 2.2 million people have been displaced, many of them women and children, and an estimated 60,000 people have fled into neighboring Sudan. The need for food, water, shelter, and medical aid is at catastrophic levels, while access to those in need is either limited or nonexistent. U.N. watchdogs have been denied observation. The internet has been shut down since November, and journalists have been arrested.
Over the course of six days in November 2020, Ethiopian government forces and allies executed two hundred civilians in Adi Hageray, a town in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Eyewitnesses report indiscriminate house-by-house killings, with victims ranging from children to ninety-year-olds.
Standing alone, this atrocity deserves international outrage – but in reality, the Adi Hageray massacre is just one tragedy within an ongoing war that has killed over 50,000 civilians and involved over 150 mass killings since November.
Almost six months in, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s war in Tigray has turned into a protracted disaster. As reports of atrocities keep coming, are there levers for peace and accountability?
The conflict turned violent in November. Tigrayan forces attacked an Ethiopian army base in the region, and the government retaliated with a major military offensive. Neighboring Eritrea, with whom Mr. Abiy had recently reconciled, joined on the side of the Ethiopian army. Militias from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have also joined in against Tigray. Six months later, massacres, rapes, and massive displacements of civilians have become weapons of war, with both sides accused of atrocities.
ADDIS ABABA, April 11 (Xinhua) — Ethiopia registered 1,739 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 227,255 as of Saturday evening, the country’s Ministry of Health said.
According to the ministry, Ethiopia currently has some 55,069 active COVID-19 cases, of which 933 are said to be under severe health conditions.
Omna Tigray, a nonprofit founded by a collective of Tigrayan professionals recently launched a Twitter campaign and a petition campaign in hope of garnering protection for the Irob and Kunuma communities which have been ravaged by a genocidal war in the region in Ethiopia.
Since November 2020, these communities have faced atrocities at the hands of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara forces. Through this campaign, the non-profit aims to draw attention to the human rights violations taking place and ask for the UN to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, waited the statutory two years before launching his genocidal war in Tigray last November.
Of all the 5.7 million people in Tigray, should the offensive continue, at least 4.5 million people will face deadly shortages of food, medicine and water, Alex de Waal, executive director of the WPF tells The Africa Report.
But this can be stopped if the majority of the Tigrayan people, many of whom are are smallholder farmers, are able to farm in time for the rains in June.
